It’s been 4 years since I opened this blog on WordPress. Ever since, I have posted some 300 news and gathered a few hundred followers for which I am thankful.

I also followed back a certain number of you and have been following some interesting topics and discussions.

As you have noticed, I am not posting regularly which is a shame but things get crowded at certain times which is what makes it difficult to keep a daily contact. I will be making amends in the future hopefully.

All in all, I wish all my followers a happy Sunday and happy summer thoughts!

PS. And of course, the CAKE!!! It just does not read exactly WordPress, but you get my point :)

The full landmark report of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has just been released. The 360-page documents sheds crucial light on the sexually and culturally abusive system of residential schools aimed at ‘civilizing’ indigenous underage children.

I could not be more proud of having brought my own work contribution to this achievement and I am happy for the people whose stories are finally heard worldwide.

Commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair says there is a sense of urgency to the report, which he hopes will serve as a reference document for ‘generations to come.’ (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Here is how the report introduces its scope, findings and recommendations:

“For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be

described as “cultural genocide.”Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity.

Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next. In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.”

A new chapter starts today for Elance-oDesk, a platform where 4 million businesses connect with 10 million knowledge worker freelancers to fill contract jobs. More than a year after the two competitors merged to form one freelancer powerhouse, and five months after raising $30 million, it is finally rebranding under a new name, Upwork. And with the new name comes a new platform, which adds a new mobile app, new search algorithms, faster processing and a real-time chat service — a completely free product that Upwork’s new CEO Stephane Kasriel describes as a “Slack killer.”

Kasriel took the CEO reigns of the Mountain View-based company two weeks ago but has been with the company since 2012, and he says that Upwork has spent the better part of the last year working on the new platform and adding in the new real-time features that the company thinks will set it apart from the rest…

People are so used to using technology that they forgot how it feels when something goes wrong. Yes, technology fails and sometimes it is quite difficult to replace it.

My PC is in a world of its own for several weeks now. Listening to Richard Stallman in Geneva last autumn, I remember him advocating strongly against using Windows and Microsoft programs. In fact, he advocated against using any type of proprietary software because – as he put it – the user does not own the code. Well, even if I owned the code, there is not much I could do since I am completely ignorant of coding languages or free software for that matter.

Going straight to the point, I had my Windows reinstalled about 2 months ago when my XP no longer reacted and when, of course, I lost all my data since I rarely backup files. Or let’s say, I only back up recent crucial files. So I got a Windows 8 on a PC bought and produced in 2006. My PC and W8 did not seem to get along in the first place but I was happy to clap my keyboard so I did not think about it much.

Two days ago, in the middle of a crucial project, my Windows refused to start and I had no other alternative than – brace yourselves – search for an Internet café in Oradea – so as to finish my project within the deadline.

And surprise, the old Internet café in Rogerius was replaced some years ago by a hair and nail salon and the only available PC seat in the some neighborhood copy center offered impossible working conditions.

That’s where I realized that we are so used to delegating things to tech apps or devices that when something goes wrong, we can no longer rely on ourselves.

P.S. I did finish my project, but only because I borrowed a laptop. It’s crazy because in the 2000s, Internet cafes were one of the most thriving businesses all across Romania and now they’re extinct. So much for excellent broadband when you lack the device to access it.